In the end, all we know is this. Four Americans were killed in an al Qaeda assault on our consulate. A filmmaker falsely accused of inciting that attack is now in prison. A member of Mr. Obama's cabinet peddled a false account of how they died when the president's intelligence team knew better. And no one, including Mr. Obama, can tell us what was done to follow his order to "do whatever we need to do" to help those Americans in Benghazi when they were still alive.

It's a baffling sequence of events and evasions—one that makes sense only in a place where the No. 1 priority is not so much securing American lives in danger but sustaining the political narrative.